A Hard Look at Screamin' Demons
A discussion on the boards yesterday got me seriously thinking about the “issue” (if you could call it that) of Screamin’ Demons (referred to as “SD” from here out) and basketball. The conversation started when a student started a thread saying that in one of her classes someone attempted to explain SD by saying “you can just check in and leave,” which is basically true, even if it’s not in the spirit of what SD is about.
The interesting thing was the outrage from many of the posters on the board. Here are a few examples:
”I would forward their name to the folks running SD's. Hopefully the leadership cares enough to try and take steps to prevent such actions.”
“Seriously, if you're going to leave so early why are you even going to the games. It seems like if you are even half interested you stay to see what happens. Otherwise why show up. Just watch it on TV and give someone that wants to go your pass.”
These posters seem to be pretty out of touch with reality. Although the SD contract stipulates that SD leadership has the right to check attendance at any point during the game, the fact is that it never happens, and for good reason. The logistics and time necessary to either go through the stands checking to make sure everyone who signed in was still there or to make every SD scan out to leave makes checking attendance during or after a game nearly impossible.
The contract also states that if you miss more than one game before Christmas break or more than one game in the spring, your membership from SD can be revoked. While this encourages attendance, it does not really take care of the problem of people leaving early. Moreover, in seasons like 2006-2007 when the team isn’t very good, revoking membership from those who don’t show up doesn’t have the desired effect because they just want as many people in the seats as possible. Last season in particular it seemed like people made an effort to come to at least part of the games up until the UNC game to ensure they would be able to get in for that one. After that, they didn’t really care and they knew SD leadership wouldn’t kick them out if they tried to come to other games.
The goal of the school and of SD is pretty simple: put as many students in the seats as possible. If the team is playing well and looking like they might make a post-season run, everyone is going to come anyway. If the team stinks, only dedicated fans are going to show up, and if other students show up it would be foolish to turn them away for not coming to previous games. At that point you just want people in the stadium so that it doesn’t look empty.
Some have suggested making SD smaller and re-allocating the newly available seats to be sold to the public. The problem is, for games when the SDs aren’t showing up, the general public usually isn’t showing up either. The problem does not lie solely with the students. Although the student section might show more concentrated emptiness, the overall emptiness of the Joel will almost always be in pretty close proportion to that the student section.
Others have argued that allowing members to get away with breaking the contract they signed is unfair to the “diehard” fans who do come and stay for every game. This argument makes almost no sense, as what one SD member does has almost no affect on another. The diehards are still guaranteed seats just like always, and if they truly are diehards they’ll probably show up early and get the good seats they want before more casual fans show up right before the game anyway. The only real downside is that the atmosphere at the games isn’t what it could be. Is this disappointing the diehard fan? Yes, but I think most of them understand that with the small student body we have it’s unreasonable to expect everyone to be interested in a mediocre basketball team playing a lesser opponent.
So we’re left with the question: what can be done to have more students in the stands? Under the current system, not a whole lot. Although many people hate the idea of rewarding students for doing what they agreed to do in the first place, I do not see any other option under the current system. At football games in previous seasons, SD leadership has raffled off prizes immediately following the game to those who are still there to claim them. This strategy would probably lead to a noticeably larger amount of students who stay until the end of the game; however it might not have much effect on the number of students who show up in the first place.
There is one way I can think of to overhaul the system and possibly increase the number of people at the games. You don’t get rid of SD, but you only make it appealing to the dedicated fans. You require members to be in the Joel a certain amount of time before the game and to scan out at the conclusion of the game, with membership revoked for missing a certain number of games and 2 tardies/incomplete games counting as one absence. As long as members were in good standing, they would be guaranteed seats for every single home game and could just show up and enter the stadium on the day of the game. If they do break the contract they are removed from SD, no questions asked. For the more casual fans, you take the remaining student section seats and make that number of tickets available a week before the game, first come first serve at the Benson ticket office (or any other easily accessible location). Any tickets not given out either 48 or 24 hours prior to the game are released for sale to the general public. This system would allow students to easily get tickets to the “less important” games they want to attend, while requiring them to go to extra effort (possibly even camping out) to make sure they would have tickets for bigger games like Duke and UNC. It also makes it possible for non-students to fill the seats if the students do not claim all the tickets.
I believe this system would discourage non-dedicated students from joining SD, while still making tickets easily accessible to them if they choose to attend a game. It also allows for these seats to be filled by members of the public if students don’t get the job done. People who do join SD are held accountable for following through on the contract and have the advantage of not having to go to any extra effort to obtain tickets to any individual game.
Every team will always have its diehard fans, just as every team will always have fair weather fans. Under the current system, you can offer all the incentives you want, but in a down year or for an unimportant game, nothing can really be done to make people come. And because it always looks better to have people in the stands than to have empty seats, it is foolish to turn away those who show up, even those who are in breach of their contract. That’s just the way it is.
I would love to hear your comments regarding my thoughts on the current system and my proposal for a different system. Please feel free to post them!
